derived outcome measures would lead to different conclusions regarding the validity of the relative severity ranking of the AUD criteria. Similarly, whereas the slopes for the risk curves linking AUD severity and the various outcomes might be slightly exaggerated as a result of using self-reported outcomes measures, any bias of this sort should not affect the comparison of the weighted and unweighted AUD severity risk curves. Thus, we would argue that the results of this paper are sufficiently robust to confirm the importance of including a dimensional measure of AUD severity in the DSM-V and the utility of a simple symptom or criterion count for this purpose.
